Pizza slices, cupcakes, and carrots are just a few emojis that anti-vaccine activists use to speak in code and continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook. Ars Technica reports: Bloomberg reported that Facebook moderators have failed to remove posts shared in anti-vaccine groups and on pages that would ordinarily be considered violating content, if not for the code-speak. One group that Bloomberg reviewed, called "Died Suddenly," is a meeting ground for anti-vaccine activists supposedly mourning a loved one who died after they got vaccines -- which they refer to as having "eaten the cake." Facebook owner Meta told Bloomberg that "it's removed more than 27 million pieces of content for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy, an ongoing process," but declined to tell Ars whether posts relying on emojis and code-speak were considered in violation of the policy.

According to Facebook community standards, the company says it will "remove misinformation during public health emergencies," like the pandemic, "when public health authorities conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm." Pages or groups risk being removed if they violate Facebook's rules or if they "instruct or encourage users to employ code words when discussing vaccines or COVID-19 to evade our detection." However, the policy remains vague regarding the everyday use of emojis and code words. The only policy that Facebook seems to have on the books directly discussing improper use of emojis as coded language deals with community standards regarding sexual solicitation. It seems that while anti-vaccine users' emoji-speak can expect to remain unmoderated, anyone using "contextually specific and commonly sexual emojis or emoji strings" does actually risk having posts removed if moderators determine they are using emojis to ask for or offer sex.

In total, Bloomberg reviewed six anti-vaccine groups created in the past year where Facebook users employ emojis like peaches and apples to suggest people they know have been harmed by vaccines. Meta's seeming failure to moderate the anti-vaccine emoji-speak suggests that blocking code-speak is likely not currently a priority. Last year, when BBC discovered that anti-vaccine groups were using carrots to mask COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, Meta immediately took down the groups identified. However, BBC reported that soon after, the same groups popped back up, and more recently, Bloomberg reported that some of the groups that it tracked seemed to change names frequently, possibly to avoid detection.

"Good news, readers: After using nearly every virtual reality headset made in the last seven years, including the latest $1,500 goggles from Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, I've seen the best of what the metaverse could offer," writes the New York Times' Brian Chen. "Yes, the best is already here, and has been for quite some time. It's video games." An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from his report: At Meta's Burlingame office, I strapped on the Quest Pro to see what was new. Meta highlighted three features: the headset's higher-definition picture, which is receiving quadruple the number of pixels of its predecessor, the $400 Quest 2; the array of cameras embedded into the headset, which can now create a real-time rendering of your facial expressions and eye movements; and new motion controllers with improved pressure sensitivity so you can squeeze a virtual object gently or grab it aggressively.

Meta employees and app developers gave me an hourlong tour through software tailored for the headset. I created a digital avatar of my face that mimicked my grins and frowns as I raised a curious brow. I made 3-D drawings and tossed virtual darts. I found the improved graphics and controllers impressive (and my animated avatar a bit creepy), but after I removed the headset and returned to reality-reality, I could only imagine wanting to use these new features to play games. My favorite virtual-reality game, Blaston, which was released in 2020 and involves players shooting one another in a virtual arena, would probably benefit from the improved motion controllers to make trigger squeezes for the different guns more realistic.PokerStars VR, where gamers gather around a virtual card table to play Texas hold 'em, would be more fun if we could pick up tells through each player's facial expressions.

By the end of the demo, I was also doubtful that I would get any work done with this headset. In a promotional video for the product, Meta suggested that the Quest Pro could be a multitasking tool for workers juggling meetings while scrolling through emails and other tasks. But the device's battery lasts only one to two hours, according to Meta. (The headset can still be used while plugged in, but using a computer is less complicated.) This is the reality on which we should base our buying decisions. Not even Meta seems to believe many people will buy the Quest Pro. It said the device's target audience would be early adopters, designers and businesses. If you fall into any of those camps, I recommend a wait-and-see approach to gauge whether useful virtual-reality applications become available for your profession.

The company left a more obvious niche off its target list: hard-core gamers willing to spend lots of money on every piece of new gaming hardware. They are in for a treat. In addition to providing access to high-resolution virtual reality games made for the Quest Pro, the headset will work with hundreds of games already made for the Quest 2. Many of those older Quest 2 titles are quite good. Games that get your heart pumping and make you break a sweat, likeBeat Saber and FitXR, which both involve swinging your arms around to hit objects, are a boon in an era when people need to wear smartwatches to remind them to stand up. None of this -- a first impression that the Quest Pro will be great for playing games and primarily be used for entertainment -- is a bad thing. The fact that we can get visually stunning, immersive gaming in a lightweight, wireless headset means virtual reality has come a long way in less than a decade. For now, that's the only reason to buy one of these.

A Russian lawmaker on Wednesday urged state institutions to stop using WhatsApp messenger and the industry ministry sought to promote domestically produced software as Russia tries to wean itself off Western technology. From a report: WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms was found guilty of "extremist activity" in Russia in March and later added to financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring's list of "terrorists and extremists." Meta's lawyer in court has said Meta was not carrying out extremist activity and was against Russophobia. Russia blocked Meta's Facebook and Instagram in March, objecting to restrictions on Russian media and some posts permitted by users in Ukraine. Widely used among Russians, WhatsApp has always remained available, but Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian parliament's committee on information policy, on Wednesday said he personally would be deleting the app and recommended a wider ban.

News outlet The Wire is investigating its own reporting amid an explosive dispute with Meta. From a report: Last week, The Wire, a small but gutsy Indian news outlet, seemed to land one explosive punch after another on Meta, the social media giant that owns Instagram and Facebook. The California company had given an influential official from India's ruling party the extraordinary power to censor Instagram posts that he didn't like, The Wire reported, citing a document leaked by a Meta insider. A day later, The Wire reported that Meta executives were scrambling to find the mole who leaked the story, citing a new internal email the publication had obtained.

Finally, after Meta executives denied both reports on social media -- and, in an unusual move, insisted that The Wire's documents appeared fabricated -- The Wire released a lengthy rebuttal on Saturday that the outlet said would lay to rest any doubts about its reporting. It did not. Instead, The Wire is now investigating itself. The publication said Tuesday it launched an internal review of its stories about Meta, adding a new twist to a sensational dispute between a reputed Indian news organization and a powerful Silicon Valley company -- a clash that has captivated the technology and media industries in both India and the United States.
UPDATE (10/23): The Wire has retracted their story.

Apple has restored Russian social network VKontatke and webmail provider Mail.Ru to the App Store, three weeks after removing them both for sanctions violations. From a report: The two services, home-grown versions of Facebook and Gmail with domestic market share to match, were removed from Apple's platforms in late September, following a wave of British sanctions that targeted the financial organisations that own them. At the time of removal, Apple had said it was complying with the sanctions issued by the UK government.

Meta has been ordered to sell gif platform Giphy for the second time by the UK competition regulator, bringing an end to the $315mn deal following a two-year antitrust battle. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority said on Tuesday that Meta's purchase of New York-based Giphy -- the biggest provider of animated images known as gifs to social networks -- would "limit choice for UK social media users and reduce innovation in UK display advertising." The CMA first told Meta to unwind the deal last November, but was forced by the Competition Appeal Tribunal in July to reconsider its conclusion after it upheld one of the social media company's grounds of appeal.

The CMA's final decision underlines the pressure on Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies from the UK regulator, which has broad powers to intervene in tie-ups touching British consumers even when the parties are based overseas. The Giphy deal marked the first time the regulator had moved to dismantle a completed Big Tech deal. Meta on Tuesday said it was "disappointed by the CMA's decision" but accepted the ruling as "the final word on the matter."

Mark Zuckerberg, writing in a Facebook post: WhatsApp is far more private and secure than iMessage, with end-to-end encryption that works across both iPhones and Android, including group chats. With WhatsApp you can also set all new chats to disappear with the tap of a button. And last year we introduced end-to-end encrypted backups too. All of which iMessage still doesn't have.

It's been one year since Facebook changed its name to "Meta Platforms," remembers The Street. So after Mark Zuckerberg "bought the Oculus Quest VR headset, rebranded it Meta Quest, and formed Reality Labs solely to work on all projects related to the metaverse" — what happened next? Meta's shares and market value have dropped and Zuckerberg's personal fortune has shrunk, falling from $125 billion in January to $49.1 billion at last check, putting him No. 23 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Reality Labs is facing the hard reality that it's pouring out gallons of red ink, losing $10 billion last year and about $5.7 billion so far in 2022.

And leaked internal documents reveal discussions between Reality Labs management and employees, indicating that "Horizon Worlds" [Meta's flagship metaverse for consumers] is ridden with game-breaking bugs, leading to a "quality lockdown" for the rest of the year.
In fact, Horizon Worlds is also "failing to meet internal performance expectations," reports CNBC, citing internal company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal: Meta initially aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by the end of the year, but the current figure is less than 200,000, according to the report. Additionally, the documents showed that most users didn't return to Horizon after the first month on the platform, and the number of users has steadily declined since spring, the Journal said.

Only 9% of worlds are visited by at least 50 people, and most are never visited at all, according to the report."
"An empty world is a sad world," one internal document reportedly adds. And Fortune cited some more discouraging statistics from the Journal's article: - Meta wants users to create their own worlds using Horizon's tools. Less than 1% are doing so.

- A tip feature to reward creators for their efforts has generated payouts of under $500 globally. Cumulatively, Horizon's worlds have brought in only about $10,000 in "In-World Payments".

- Retention rates for the Quest virtual-reality headsets — sold by Meta to access Horizons — have dropped in each of the past three years.
CNBC also notes that the report "comes as the company's stock falls, user numbers decline and advertisers cut spending. Meta shares are down 62% so far this year...." So how did Meta respond to the Journal's article? A Meta spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that the company continues to make improvements to the metaverse, which was always meant to be a multiyear project. Representatives for Meta didn't immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Meta has said it will release a web version of Horizon for mobile devices and computers this year, but the spokesman didn't have any launch dates to disclose.

"Public officials in Washington for years have sparred along partisan lines over whether social media platforms take down too much or too little hate speech and misinformation," reports the Washington Post's politics/tech newsletter, The Technology 202.

"A council launching this week aims to sidestep those disputes by proposing reforms that tackle issues of bipartisan concern, including children's safety and national security." The newly minted Council for Responsible Social Media, set up by the nonpartisan nonprofit Issue One, features a wide-ranging and influential lineup of former U.S. lawmakers and federal officials, advocates, scholars, industry leaders and whistleblowers... "This is not a think tank. This is an action tank," former Democratic House majority leader Dick Gephardt told The Technology 202. "We want to see results...."

"The core goal of the commission is to really show that there are bipartisan paths forward ... that involve having companies have to actually talk about what is their role in society," Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said in an interview. Haugen said the council can move the debate around social media accountability forward by focusing on areas of "common ground," like concerns around algorithmic amplification, transparency and platform design choices. Haugen said proposals the council might explore include giving users, particularly children, the option to "reset algorithms" so they do not keep wandering down the same risky "rabbit holes." By focusing on systemic issues, she said, the group might be able to help build support for ideas that sidestep thorny speech debates. The council may also rally around legislation that already has bipartisan support, such as recent Senate bills on kids' online safety and platform transparency, Haugen said....

The council is also poised to shine a brighter spotlight on how U.S. companies may be playing into the hands of foreign adversaries — scrutiny that has largely focused on TikTok, owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance.... Haugen said one concept the group may explore is requiring "consistent reporting" by companies about how much they are investing to counter foreign influence operations.
The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (introduced in 2021) "would require social media firms to comply with researcher data requests for external audits," reports the Guardian. "Under the proposed law, failure to do so could result in loss of legal protections for content hosted on their platform."

"There are a number of large opportunities today that were not on the table a year ago in terms of moving forward in a bipartisan way," Haugen told the Guardian. "They just need a push over the finish line."

The company formerly known as Facebook earlier this week announced -- and demonstrated -- that avatars on its metaverse will soon have legs. Here's an update on that: While the updates bringing full-body avatars aren't expected until 2023, Zuckerberg was clearly seen jumping around in the video, giving everyone an early look at the tech. Or was he?

Anyone who has ever been around any piece of marketing ever made should know by now that not everything is as it seems when a company is trying to sell you something. And in this case, the video Meta showed off was made with some help. As UploadVR's Ian Hamilton has since reported, Meta has issued a follow-up statement, which says, "To enable this preview of what's to come, the segment featured animations created from motion capture."

Earlier this week, Meta revealed the Meta Quest Pro, the company's most premium virtual reality headset to date with a new processor and screen, dramatically redesigned body and controllers, and inward-facing cameras for eye and face tracking. "To celebrate the $1,500 headset, Meta made some fun new additions to its privacy policy, including one titled 'Eye Tracking Privacy Notice,'" reports Gizmodo. "The company says it will use eye-tracking data to 'help Meta personalize your experiences and improve Meta Quest.' The policy doesn't literally say the company will use the data for marketing, but 'personalizing your experience' is typical privacy-policy speak for targeted ads." From the report: Eye tracking data could be used "in order to understand whether people engage with an advertisement or not," said Meta's head of global affair Nick Clegg in an interview with the Financial Times. Whether you're resigned to targeted ads or not, this technology takes data collection to a place we've never seen. The Quest Pro isn't just going to inform Meta about what you say you're interested in, tracking your eyes and face will give the company unprecedented insight about your emotions. "We know that this kind of information can be used to determine what people are feeling, especially emotions like happiness or anxiety," said Ray Walsh, a digital privacy researcher at ProPrivacy. "When you can literally see a person look at an ad for a watch, glance for ten seconds, smile, and ponder whether they can afford it, that's providing more information than ever before."

Meta has already developed a ton of technology for these purposes. The company filed a patent for a system that "adapts media content" based on facial expressions back in January, and it has experimented with harnessing and manipulating people's emotions for more than a decade. In January, it patented a mechanical eyeball. Despite the public's privacy concerns about Meta, it may be hard for people who use the company's products to resist activating the eye-tracking features because of what they will allow your avatar to do.

"If Meta is successful, there's going to be a stigma attached with denying that data," ProPrivacy's Walsh said. "You don't want to be the only one looking like an expressionless zombie in a virtual room full of people smiling and frowning." Of course, eye-tracking data could be used to determine what you're thinking about buying. Maybe you spend a few extra seconds glancing at an expensive digital fedora, and the company sends you a coupon code an hour later. But measuring your emotions opens up a whole new arena for targeted ads. Digital marketing is all about showing you the right ad at the right moment. Walsh says advertisers could build campaigns with content specifically designed for people who seem frustrated, or more cheerful ad for people who are in a good mood.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last year, former Oculus CTO (and current company advisor) John Carmack threw down the gauntlet for Meta's near-term metaverse plans. By the 2022 Meta Connect conference, Carmack said last October, he hoped he'd be in his headset, "walking around the [virtual] halls or walking around the stage as my avatar in front of thousands of people getting the feed across multiple platforms." Carmack's vision didn't come to pass Tuesday, as a jerky and awkward Carmack avatar gave one of his signature, hour-long unscripted talks amid a deserted VR space, broadcast out as plain old 2D video on Facebook.

"Last year I said that I'd be disappointed if we weren't having Connect in Horizon this year," Carmack said by way of introduction. "This here, this isn't really what I meant. Me being an avatar on-screen on a video for you is basically the same thing as [just] being on a video." That set the tone for a presentation in which Carmack said that "there's a bunch that I'm grumpy about" regarding the current state of Meta's current VR hardware and software. While that grumpiness was somewhat tempered with talk of recent improvements and hope for the future of virtual reality, Carmack seemed generally frustrated with the direction Meta as a whole is taking its VR efforts.

[...] Carmack also seemed skeptical that the $1,499, feature-laden Quest Pro was the right product for Meta to be focusing on at this time. "I've always been clear that I'm all about the cost-effective mass-market headsets being the most important thing for us and for the adoption of VR," Carmack said. "And Quest Pro is definitely not that..." As a "counterpoint" to the push for the Quest Pro in the Meta offices, Carmack says he "personally still [tries] to drum up interest internally in this vision of a super cheap, super lightweight headset." His rallying cry, he says, is a target of "$250 and 250 grams" for a headset that cuts out as many extraneous features as possible while still being usable (the Quest Pro weighs 722 grams while the Quest 2 is 503 grams). That could help bring "super light comforts" to "more people at low-end price points. We're not building that headset today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation.

Mark Zuckerberg said he enjoys "being doubted" in a new interview. From a report: The Meta CEO talked about where the company is now, and what's new for the metaverse, the big pivot he's currently leading his company through. Compared to building Facebook from the ground up, which he noted reached a billion users 10 years ago, growing the metaverse on top of an already built platform is "a lot easier."

"I enjoy being doubted," Zuckerberg said, talking about building something over time. When Heath asked Zuckerberg how he still enjoys being doubted and why, Zuckerberg said he thinks "it gets a little comfortable" if "too many people get or think what you're doing is obviously going to happen." Zuckerberg said getting hate is different from being doubted, and that one of the difficult things about running his company and being a public person on the internet is separating constructive criticism and "people who are just haters." But, he said, listening to criticism can be useful. "If you tune out everyone who thinks that you're not doing something right, then you're going to miss a lot of really valuable signals to do stuff better than you're doing it today," Zuckerberg said. "So you want to not ignore critique, but at the same time, I just think that there are a lot of people who actually aren't trying to help and aren't trying to make things better." Further reading: Mark Zuckerberg Says Waking Up Every Day as CEO of Meta is Like Getting Punched in the Stomach.

During Meta Connect today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is partnering with Meta to bring its biggest services -- Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming -- to Meta's Quest VR headsets. The Verge reports: It's a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan. [...] The Teams experience the new Quest Pro and Quest 2 headsets will even include Microsoft adapting Meta's avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta's own Horizon Workrooms. "People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the event. "We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future."

This virtual office of the future won't just be about meetings. Microsoft is bringing Windows 365 to Quest, the company's platform for streaming full versions of Windows to devices. "With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you'll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device with the full power of Windows and Windows applications," Nadella said.

Microsoft is also bringing 2D versions of its Office apps to Quest through its Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology. These won't be full-blown 3D versions of Office designed for VR, but if there's an appetite for VR in the enterprise, then it's easy to imagine Microsoft adapting them in the future. Xbox Cloud Gaming will even make its way to Meta's Quest VR headsets, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games. It's not going to be as immersive as a native VR experience for Xbox games, but you'll be able to pick up an Xbox controller and play them on a giant screen projected inside a Quest headset. Earlier today, Meta announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it's been teasing for the past year. They also announced a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs.

Meta has finally announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it's been teasing for the past year. The Quest Pro is a new branch of the Quest VR headset lineup, featuring a new processor and screen, a dramatically redesigned body and controllers, inward-facing cameras for eye and face tracking, and a color video feed for mixed reality apps. Preorders open today in 22 countries, and devices will ship on October 25th. From a report: The Quest Pro will sit alongside the $399 Quest 2, which Meta will continue selling as well. But where the Quest 2 user base favors fitness, games, and other entertainment, the Quest Pro is aimed at businesses and professionals who can afford its higher price tag. The Quest Pro is effectively a heavily redesigned Quest 2 with extra features. Its body uses a thinner stack of lenses, which Meta says cuts its depth by 40 percent compared to the Quest 2. It fits on your head with a padded plastic ring (similar to the Quest 2's optional Elite Strap) instead of cloth straps, and its battery has been shifted to the back of the headset, rebalancing it. That helps offset the 722-gram weight, which is quite a bit heavier than the Quest 2's 503 grams, though the difference gets less dramatic with the separate 173-gram Elite Strap. By default, the Quest Pro's thinner lens system means you'll see more peripheral vision and space under your headset. Optional face masks can block those openings, giving you an experience closer to the earlier Quest.

Meta didn't hold back with their announcements at Meta Connect this year. As Facebook has done every year or so, the company is shaking up their avatar products. From a report: This year as Meta focuses more heavily on the metaverse, the company made a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs. The announcement that the avatars, which were previously floating torsos with arms and heads, now have evolved to walk was something Zuckerberg was very excited about with his avatar jumping for joy during the keynote. From February this year: Why You Can't Have Legs in Virtual Reality (Yet).

As Meta makes deeper inroads with businesses on WhatsApp, its biggest bet to monetize the instant messaging app with over 2 billion users, we are getting an early glimpse at how user experience might change on the free app. It's not great. From a report: Scores of people in India, WhatsApp's largest market by users with over 500 million accounts, have complained about getting too many spam texts from businesses in recent months. WhatsApp, which quickly displaced the SMS app in the country by offering free texts, is increasingly looking like that SMS app, users say. Thousands of brands in India have signed up for WhatsApp, consistently succeeding in reaching eyeballs of more than 80% users, a person familiar with the matter said, a figure miles ahead of campaigns run on emails and traditional texts. What's more annoying is that even after users have blocked some businesses, many return to the inbox from different phone numbers, according to author's account.

Slashdot reader silverjacket writes: Research presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning shows that when recommender systems use reinforcement learning to increase engagement, they can have the side effect of shifting our preferences to increase engagement. The researchers also showed ways to detect and reduce such manipulation. Google and Facebook have used reinforcement learning in their recommender systems but didn't respond to questions.

Iran's government is trying to limit internet access, reports CNBC — while Iranians are trying a variety of technologies to bypass the blocks: Outages first started hitting Iran's telecommunications networks on September 19, according to data from internet monitoring companies Cloudflare and NetBlocks, and have been ongoing for the last two and a half weeks. Internet monitoring groups and digital rights activists say they're seeing "curfew-style" network disruptions every day, with access being throttled from around 4 p.m. local time until well into the night. Tehran blocked access to WhatsApp and Instagram, two of the last remaining uncensored social media services in Iran. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and several other platforms have been banned for years.

As a result, Iranians have flocked to VPNs, services that encrypt and reroute their traffic to a remote server elsewhere in the world to conceal their online activity. This has allowed them to restore connections to restricted websites and apps. On September 22, a day after WhatsApp and Instagram were banned, demand for VPN services skyrocketed 2,164% compared to the 28 days prior, according to figures from Top10VPN, a VPN reviews and research site. By September 26, demand peaked at 3,082% above average, and it has continued to remain high since, at 1,991% above normal levels, Top10VPN said....

Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at free speech campaign group Article 19, said a contact she's been communicating with in Iran showed his network failing to connect to Google, despite having installed a VPN. "This is new refined deep packet inspection technology that they've developed to make the network extremely unreliable," she said. Such technology allows internet service providers and governments to monitor and block data on a network. Authorities are being much more aggressive in seeking to thwart new VPN connections, she added....

VPNs aren't the only techniques citizens can use to circumvent internet censorship. Volunteers are setting up so-called Snowflake proxy servers, or "proxies," on their browsers to allow Iranians access to Tor — software that routes traffic through a "relay" network around the world to obfuscate their activity.

Meta is warning Facebook users about hundreds of apps on Apple and Google's app stores that were specifically designed to steal login credentials to the social network app. From a report: The company says it's identified over 400 malicious apps disguised as games, photo editors, and other utilities and that it's notifying users who "may have unknowingly self-compromised their accounts by downloading these apps and sharing their credentials." According to Bloomberg, a million users were potentially affected. In its post, Meta says that the apps tricked people into downloading them with fake reviews and promises of useful functionality (both common tactics for other scam apps that are trying to take your money rather than your login info). But upon opening some of the apps, users were prompted to log in with Facebook before they could actually do anything -- if they did, the developers were able to steal their credentials.